Monday, October 28, 2013

Legacy of our freedom movement still survives in the collective unconscious

@IndiaOpines: Yogendra Yadav - http://t.co/PKefa9CuMO

A big movement tends to draw people from outside the activist class and creates a new activist class. This is what the AAP movement has done. If you come to our office, then you realise people from a very diverse background have come in. Honestly, the one big gain for me after coming to this party – and it allows me to sleep well every night irrespective of whatever else keeps happening – that every day I get to meet people who are fired by idealism – like someone telling you that he was preparing for the IAS examination but has postponed it for two years, or that he has closed his shop for three months, or that he has given up his job in the US and wants to do something for the country. Whichever way they understand it, even if their understanding is flawed, even if I have lots of questions, even if I am opposed to some of their naïve, simplistic beliefs about how this can be done, but the fact is here is positive energy coming into your public life.

Apart from the issue of corruption, what is the idea you think has moved them?

One thing that amazes me is the power of nationalism. We tend to believe, and academics have convinced themselves and everyone else as well, that nationalism has died the death in India.

You mean the idea of belonging to an entity called India.

Yes, in the high academic circles, this is mocked at. People talk about us having moved beyond the nation-phase etc. What amazes me is that how much of the legacy of our freedom movement still survives in the collective unconscious of this country. You know the willingness to say desh ke liye karna hai (we have to do it for the nation). Now, this metaphor lends itself to narrow misuse as well, because it lends itself to a BJP-style of thinking, because it lends itself to a very shrill anti-Pakistan rhetoric, but once properly oriented to thinking about the people of this country – like saying India means its people of India, that India includes Manipur – then this energy can be very creative. The simple sense of pride about the country, and it is particularly so among those who have been abroad for a little while – now bit of it gets diverted into the VHP-kind of things, but I also see a very creative aspect of it. So I’d say a lot of it is driven by nationalism, and a good part of it is a simple-minded desire to do good to society. Every collectivity in the world has people who want to do something good out there. There’s a lot of that element as well.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Unable and unwilling to understand Sri Aurobindo.

Tweets
  1. Antipathy towards UPA can never justify unadulterated sycophancy and parroting of blatant falsehood planted by the RSS publicity machine.
  2. The greatest disappointment of the past Century is Ambedkar ignoring Sri Aurobindo's works. Dalit politics can undo that error even today.
  3. Sri Aurobindo and Gandhi never met in person but in Vinoba Bhave and JP we find their common legacy burnished in the politics of the day.
  4. Both the Congress and the RSS are aberrations ensuing from the 1907 Surat split which need to be disbanded in the true national interest.
  5. The Congress, at this juncture, is a pack of jokers who delude themselves with the impression that they are serving a grand national cause.
  6. Congress was for nation only in the period between the partition of bengal till tilak's death - rest was handmaiden of brits and now italy
  7. Sri Aurobindo has commented extensively on his contemporaries, events & their circumstances but our history books are silent on his opinion.
  8. Someone planned a similar makeover with Anna Hazare but it backfired for want of talent and, regrettably, turned into a deceptive parody.
  9. Shifting the capital from Kolkata to Delhi and shifting Gandhi from SA to India were twin strategies executed by the British a Century back.
  10. [Envy is provoked by a person comparing his situation with the situation of certain others and perceiving inequalities.] -Anthony de Jasay
  11. [eternal encounter between divine love & divine wrath leads to the mutual potentialization into a dynamic succession of evolutionary stages]
  12. [Jonael Schickler’s phenomenological account of the life of the concept in terms of physical inherence and etheric metamorphosis] -MD Segall
  13. 1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place:
  14. As long as Lok Satta doesn't take the AAP's socialist path, it is bound to emerge some day as a strong counter to established crony parties.
  15. AAP is the Plan-B of the sinking Dynasty but lacks a pan-Indian narrative. Its dry and dyed-in-the-wool anti-corruption rhetoric is barren.
  16. [by pondering over universal history, Hegel intended to draw the philosophical meaning from Napoleonic politics.] BROUSSARD NICOLAS
  17. A greater paradox is a whole phalanx swearing allegiance to Vivekananda being unable & unwilling to understand Sri Aurobindo.
  18. 1808 - The citizens of Madrid rose up against Napoleon. 1813 - Napoleon defeated a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen.
  19. [Nevertheless, for the first half of 1814 Napoleon exhibited the military genius of his youth, but it was a war he couldn't win alone.]
  20. 2014 is the Centenary year of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo meeting each other & embarking upon a new anthem of human destiny: The Life Divine.
  21. Post-colonialism & Cold-war gave way to militant Islam with the onset of the current Century. 2014 is a challenge for India to kick the past
  22. [Steiner, like Schelling and Whitehead, explicitly distinguishes his own use of the concept from the “hypothetical ether of the physicist.”]
  23. The "Five Dreams" broadcast by Sri Aurobindo on August 14, 1947 marks a new evolutionary journey by the mankind led by India's Vedic wisdom.
  24. As of late, I've felt a deeper affinity to the mysticism of de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo & Jean Gebser.
  25. Pre Independence, Bengal produced people like Vivekananda, Aurobindo. Pretty amazing what Left rule has done to the state ....
  26. Sri Aurobindo writing as back in 1906 says “But the Congress started from the beginning with a misconception (cont)
  27. Review of Women's Studies: Revitalising Dalit Feminism: Towards Reflexive, Anti-Caste Agency of Mang and Mahar...
  28. Review of Women's Studies: Dalit Women as Political Agents: A Kerala Experience...
  29. Review of Women's Studies: Cultural Gandhism: Casting Out the Dalit Woman
  30. BJP sinking in Karnataka reminds of the Left Front undergoing a slow death in West Bengal. Relics of the past are but to perish.
  31. Instead of looking for a cult figure,BJP need to unite opposition like 1977or'89.it needs to have effective public campaigns than soundbytes
  32. "Politicise" as a word is losing its relevance for the good of the country. Congress has been using it like a Cloak of Invisibility.
  33. > summarizes UPA’s intent: The need for reform has become a ruse for centralisation of power. LT
  34. shouldn't deter us from asking tough questions, those which we believe right, of the party we support, right?
  35. [May 2, 1813 – Battle of Lützen: Napoleon hastily assembled an army of 200000 severely short of horses & wins against German alliance.]
  36. भाजपा का सबसे पहला कर्तव्य है कि वो मुद्दों को सही ढंग से पेश करे और सही ढंग से अपनी मांगें रखे.सीबीआई का क्या करना?उसे कैसे "आज़ाद" करना?
  37. A person representing ideas is borderline sycophancy, isn't it?
  38. karat got a leg up bcoz of jesus. His Loyola Prof famous liberation theologian.
  39. LKA/ABV joined Mayawati - Destroyed BJP in UP? Joined Patnaik - destroyed BJP in Odisha? Joined Nitish - destroying BJP in Bihar?
  40. Symptomatic of decay when young and highly educated abdicate reason to rely on miracle and charisma.
  41. Dynasty politics is a result of apathy of the masses to politics. Don't care who rules as long as someone does
  42. Thousands of years of monarchy & Jamindar/ Lala culture has conditioned Indians in assuming capacity in Surname
  43. Being an independent, non-party, non-media person on twitter is great. You can speak your mind without worrying about political correctness.
  44. not really. strong movements need a charismatic individual to demystify and communicate it to electorate
  45. Why are you bent on chipping away BJP's vote share? Please join the party to truly help the Right, else you'll play spoiler
  46. RSS has its issues & hangups, no one's denying that. But a call for de-linking RSS & BJP is a defacto call for disbanding BJP altogether!
  47. "Independents" do more harm than good. BJP is today united (atleast formally) because of RSS. No RSS => No BJP
  48. BJP is the political wing of the RSS and not an independent Party with a mind of its own. This Kafkaesque scenario is repulsive.
  49. Nothing convinces like involvement with a Party. Savitri Era is the only genuinely right wing Party in the country at the moment